Martyrs (english version)
by LuckyVV
Summary: There will be no turning back for Rachel when she leaves Ohio to help her friend Quinn. And there will be no turning back for Quinn either, who just did something irredeemable after fifteen years of silent suffering. AU Faberry, inspired by the movie Martyrs by Pascal Laugier.
1. Chapter 1

**Another translation ! I don't know if this one will please you, to be honest it's quite dark and a bit angsty and... well, you'll see. A Faberry story far, far away from the show. I was inspired by Martyrs, the french movie. I was very moved by it, I can say without a doubt that it's one of my favorite movie, even if I don't particularly want to watch it again. Ha. Well, I wish you a good read, and I hope you will enjoy it !**

* * *

"Rachel, it's me."

"Quinn, is everything alright ? What's happening ?"

"I'm OK. You have to come, as soon as possible."

"But for God's sake, where are you ? What happened to you ? Are you safe ?"

For an instant, only a slow, spasmodic breathing could be heard through the receiver. She waited for the words to come, unbearably.

"Rachel... I found them."

* * *

Rachel had met Quinn for the first time fifteen years ago. They were only seven years old.

Quinn was her only friend. One could say that she was, too, without any doubt, Quinn's only friend.

It didn't really matter for any one of them, actually ; Rachel didn't care about knowing half of the town or having connections in every domain. The blonde was more than enough for her. She only needed her.

Quinn had just called her, at four in the morning, after four days without hearing from her.

She had never let a single day pass without talking to her before.

Rachel knew that something important, something grave had happened. She had felt it, since the day before, when she tried to call Quinn on her cellphone but could only reach her voicemail.

The blonde never turned off her cell phone.

Her doubts were confirmed when she received this phone call, in the middle of the night, when she heard her dull, lifeless voice, her erratic breathing, breaking the deathly silence hovering over their skulls.

She still didn't know where Quinn was, and it scared her more than anything.

She couldn't stand that somebody would pick on Quinn again. She had sworn to protect her until the end of her life, and she would continue to do so. Only, not knowing where she was, with whom, or even if she was safe was making her physically sick.

Nobody would ever harm a hair on Quinn's head, Rachel said to herself. Never.

* * *

The young brunette took her car keys and locked the door of the apartment behind her. She didn't know when she would come back, or if she would come back at all, but it didn't really matter.

She and Quinn had lived in so many different places that they had forgotten what it was like to leave a home forever.

But they were only houses, impersonal places. It had never been their home, their place of rest and peace. Their safe place.

Rachel looked at the bunch of keys in one of her hands, her backpack in the other. She had put some clothes and a first-aid kit in it, nothing more. She hoped in spite of herself that what Quinn had found didn't require more than a couple of days in the unknown.

Before starting her car, Rachel sent a text to Quinn, asking her where she was exactly, if she needed anything, if she had to ask for help. She wasn't hoping for an immediate answer, so that's why she turned the ignition key and began to drive aimlessly, following the road uncoiling before her eyes, leaving an umpteenth house behind her.

She had a feeling that she would probably never come back here again.

* * *

Quinn was already gone for four days, leaving Rachel alone to worry behind her. But she had a specific objective in mind when she had jumped into the first train with her backpack as her only luggage.

She had searched for so long, and she was finally nearing her goal, after sixteen years of waiting.

The first day, the blonde woman had wanted to send a message to Rachel, telling her not to worry (Rachel was always worrying for her, for any reason, and Quinn hated that she fretted so much). But she had changed her mind, and almost immediately turned off her cell phone.

Because Rachel could ask her where she was, and the blonde couldn't lie to her, and Rachel would want to come straight away.

It was out of the question. She didn't want to lead the young woman into this sordid story.

The train stopped several times, crossing Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Quinn went out after ten hours spent on the railroad.

She was coming closer to her destination.

She spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a cheap and good-looking hotel, in which she stayed for two nights. The third day, she was back on the road with a car that she had rented, then drove again for hours.

The fourth day, at around three in the morning, she arrived in front of a two-story house, surrounded by blue and green forests and covered with a nocturnal mist not really reassuring.

Quinn cut the engine, waited for a few instants in the misty automobile. She didn't know exactly how she was feeling at this moment, but she didn't wait to find out. She put on her coat and came out, observing the house curiously, without moving a muscle for one minute or two. Then, slowly, she began to walk around the habitation, being careful of where she was putting her feet — the ground was in places covered with mud, twigs were scattered across the damp soil, a few holes had been dug into the earth, probably by moles or a bad gardener.

Quinn walked slowly through the half darkness, never taking her eyes off the house.

A quarter of an hour passed, and she turned her phone on and dialed the only number she knew by heart.

* * *

Despite the comfort that Rachel's voice gave her through the phone, after three hours of interminable waiting in her rented car, Quinn couldn't stand to stay idle anymore and looked at the structure with a steel gaze.

Again, Quinn went out of the car, put her sweatshirt on to protect herself from the cold and pulled the hood over her head. She didn't bother closing the door.

She opened the trunk, took her backpack which hadn't left her since her departure from Ohio, and spilled its insides.

There was no reaction marbling her face. She stayed calm, impassive like she had been since the beginning of her journey.

Before her eyes were a shotgun and a box of cartridges.

* * *

Quinn rang the doorbell on the front door. It was almost eight in the morning.

A woman of around forty years old opened the door and smiled shyly at her. With a questioning voice, she asked:

"Yes ? Can I do something for you ?"

Quinn's face stayed expressionless. "Are you Patricia Kane ?"

The woman nodded, unsure. "What are you..."

Quinn didn't give her the time to answer, raised the gun she held behind her back and shot.

* * *

Rachel drove for almost four hours, without making more than a twenty-minute break.

She hoped that Quinn was alright, that she was not in danger. If she had really found the ones whom she had been looking for fifteen years, she might be able to do something reckless, something thoughtless, despite the stillness of her voice when she had talked to her on the phone earlier.

The young blonde had been patient, trying to find this family by any means for so many years. She shouldn't let herself get caught by her feelings now.

Rachel gritted her teeth, stepped a little more on the accelerator. She was anxiously waiting for a sign from Quinn.

It only came after two and a half hours of strolling at the wheel of her car, when her phone vibrated, informing her of a new message. Quinn had sent her an address where she had to go.

The little brown-haired girl quickly turned around and drove toward her new destination, going well above the authorized speed.

She must absolutely arrive before Quinn did something irredeemable. Who knew how she would behave before the people who had been her torturers, who haunted her endlessly day and night ?

She sighed. Quinn had suffered too much, too long. It had to stop.

Rachel saw the sign telling that she was leaving Ohio.

This time, she was almost certain that she wouldn't come back.

* * *

At around noon, Rachel had reached the address. She saw a black car parked next to a huge house, and she knew right away that she was in the right place. She parked beside the other vehicle and waited patiently before coming out.

The air was cold, stinging for the month of March. The ground was still wet because of the rain which had fallen early this morning.

Around her, there was nothing but silence. Rachel took a few instants to observe this landscape, as if it was frozen in time; the trees barely moved despite the breeze, the pine trees of eternal green were standing, threatening, everywhere she looked. Some birds cried, announcing rain or the sunshine, she couldn't tell. Only the immense structure told her that there was life around her. Its light colors and its brick covered roof clashed in their setting, and it comforted her a little.

The young woman came closer to the vehicle of her friend, carefully — at least, she thought it was hers. She had probably rented it, which had made it possible for her to get there. Her backpack was still in the front seat, as well as her coat.

She looked at the house. The door was closed, and there was nothing to prove that something unusual had happened.

She hoped that she wasn't too late.

* * *

Only the steam coming out of her mouth reminded her that she was still alive, that what she was seeing was real.

Thinking about it, she wondered if she wouldn't rather be dead at this instant.

Rachel had pushed the huge front door, which was only ajar, and discovered hell.

She pressed a hand against her mouth, restraining herself from throwing up, from screaming, from weeping.

Blood. Blood everywhere, on the walls, on the carpets, on the parquet, even on the ceiling.

Splashes on every side, in the vast living room, like a war scene.

Broken crockery, knocked over furniture, ornaments littering the floor.

Rachel stifled a cry. She couldn't see anyone, not even Quinn. She walked slowly, avoiding to look at those purple and scarlet heaps, staining the wallpaper and the furniture.

She had to know where Quinn was. She called her name, several times, her voice shaking with fear, going carefully from one room to another.

She hoped that there was nobody here with her, hidden behind a wall, ready to knock her out or to kill her in cold blood.

"Rachel..."

She started upon hearing a tired voice, monotonic, coming from the kitchen. She went there, feverish; she could see nothing but this red everywhere, so bright and fresh that it was burning her retina.

Quinn didn't even look surprised to see her. She was sitting against the wall, a rifle three feet from her, a few droplets of blood on her clothes and on her face. The young woman ran to her, kneeled down next to her and held her breath, her tears, her rage.

She hoped that the one who had touched Quinn was still alive so that she could kill them herself.

The small brunette moved the firearm aside as a precaution. Quinn didn't seem wounded, at least not grievously, and she was immensely relieved by this observation. Carefully, Rachel drew the girl against her, squeezing her shoulders.

"It was them, Rachel," Quinn said in a cold tone, closing her eyes. "It was them."

Rachel moved blonde strands away from her face, noticing a cut above her right eye. She thought she knew the answer — she was sure, even — but she preferred asking her, "Who, honey ?"

Quinn looked at her. Her eyes were sad but peaceful, and her bottom lip began to shake when she pronounced those words.

"The ones I was looking for fifteen years. They're the ones who had abducted me, Rachel."

And Rachel began to cry.

* * *

She had met Quinn when she was seven years old. At this moment, Quinn didn't talk. She couldn't, not anymore.

She had needed six months before she could articulate words. Since then, Rachel had cherished every single word coming out of her mouth.

They had met in an orphanage for kids who had gone through difficult times. Rachel had ended up there because her parents had just died in an accident, and she was the only survivor. However, Quinn had never expressly told her why she had suddenly found herself at the same place.

But two months ago, she had revealed her everything.

How she had been kidnapped, when she was only six and a half years old.

Withdrawn from her family, which had then been found dead, dreadfully tortured.

Quinn herself didn't know about this before she was ten.

Since then, she had wanted to discover who were the authors of the odious crime from which her parents and her sisters had been the victims. What Rachel didn't know until then, it was that Quinn had decided to find them for the sole purpose of avenging herself.

* * *

"Quinn... is that you who... did you do that ?"

The poor woman seemed exhausted. On her forehead, the sweat was mixing with the blood and was beginning to roll down her temples.

Rachel felt like she wanted to cry again, but she had to be strong. To show that she was strong, at least on the outside, if only to help Quinn. Fifteen minutes had already passed, during which they snuggled up together without looking around them, not willing to see the massacre that had happened, the dark stains adorning the walls and the carpets.

The little dark-haired girl was still holding her friend against her chest, murmuring her from time to time sweet, insignificant words to take her away from the horror surrounding them.

Quinn shrugged when she heard the question.

"It seems so."

Rachel kept silent. She glanced around her — even though she would have given anything to not see again a crime scene of such an atrocity — and she couldn't see a single body. Only blood, everywhere. The kitchen seemed rather spared by this carnage, but the living room that she could see through the half-open door was in a poor state.

She closed her eyelids.

She probably began to shudder, because Quinn put a hand on her face and asked her if she was alright, if she was going to cope.

Rachel nodded, opened her eyes again. "Yes. Of course. Just tell me... tell me what you need. Tell me what should I do," she finished, looking in Quinn's green eyes, worried and tranquil at the same time.

They weren't the eyes of a killer. They weren't the eyes of someone who had just committed something unnameable, slaughtered in cold blood a whole family, took the life of human beings.

They were the eyes of a little girl, a woman to which one had stolen her childhood and her innocence.

The blonde kept on watching Rachel for a long time, ten minutes or one hour, she couldn't have told. Then, slowly, she articulated, with a voice eaten away by the tears and shaking in the deathly silence :

"You have to help me hide."

Rachel nodded. "I will."

"And we have..." Quinn swallowed, searching the right words, the ones which would hurt less. "You have to help me hide the bodies."

Rachel felt nauseous. But she had to be strong, for Quinn.

"I'll do whatever you want."


	2. Chapter 2

**I forgot to say it last time, but I'd like to thank my beta Hazel006 for helping me, again. I hope you had a Merry Christmas, see you next year !**

* * *

Rachel looked at her hands. They were small, with thin fingers, and a few red stains adorned her palms. For an instant, she wondered if she could get arrested by the police, if, even if she could manage to wash the blood off her hands, they could find residues on her hands, if they could analyze the DNA of the person — or of the persons — it belonged to.

They could charge her with murder while she had done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

She shook her head and tried not to think about it.

She had to pull herself together, to focus. She couldn't let herself get paralyzed by the morbid tribulations of her brain.

She stood up and held out her hand to help Quinn standing up. Her legs were shaking, and she stabilized herself by gripping the kitchen counter.

"Will you be alright ?"

"Don't worry," Quinn answered, breathing in deeply. "We have... we have to hurry. The quicker we'll get rid of the bodies, the quicker we can go away from this place."

The little brunette swallowed, but still she nodded to show she agreed. She didn't want to linger in this huge house which was housing lifeless bodies for more than one hour. She didn't even know how many corpses there were.

She preferred not to ask her.

After a minute, Quinn seemed to breathe more evenly. She put her hands on her face, which reopened the cut above her eye.

Rachel frowned. "Wait a minute, I'll be back."

"Where are you going ?" Quinn said. "Don't leave me alone."

Rachel smiled bitterly. The blonde had the voice of a little girl afraid of the dark.

"Don't worry, I'm coming back. I'm going to get something for you."

She came back, as promised, one minute later, with the first-aid kit she had brought in her bag. She disinfected the open wound on the blonde's forehead until the blood stopped running. The cut wasn't very deep; Quinn wouldn't keep any scar, except maybe one, invisible, amongst hundreds of other that she kept deep inside her.

While she was at it, Rachel cleaned the hands of the young woman, which were scarlet, knowing full well that it would serve no purpose at all; they still had to take care of the bodies, and she could only delay what was bound to happen.

Quinn must have felt her anxiety and her hesitation because she grasped her wrist and asked her if she was doing alright.

"It should be going fine," Rachel said. "I'm holding on."

"You know that you aren't obliged to help me," Quinn said. "I know that it's a lot to ask from you, but I don't want to force you into anything."

"You're not forcing me. I'm going to help you. I have to help you."

The blonde tried to dissuade her one last time, even though it was a wasted effort, she knew it. A dozen of minutes later, they had put the first-aid kit away and they were getting ready to face the horror.

Just in case, Quinn picked up her shotgun and held it in a tight grip against her hip.

* * *

When she was six, Quinn had witnessed the most dreadful scene of her life.

A summer night, two people slipped inside the house where she was living with her parents and her older sister. She couldn't remember much about the exact sequence of the events, which got bogged down and were gradually fading from her memory, but she could perfectly well remember the black masks they wore on their face, and the handguns they had pointed at her parents.

She remembered having screamed, then nothing.

Sometimes, she wondered if she had made up all of this, if it was only a machination of her mind.

But Quinn knew that she didn't imagine her awakening in a damp and dark cellar, and the two faces that were gazing at her stoically, silently. A man and a woman, pointing a revolver toward her.

She could recall the musty smell prevailing around her, panting for breath, and the woman's voice, commanding and cold, telling her when she got closer: "You're gonna do exactly what we tell you to do."

During days, or hours, or months, her ordeal lasted. However, less than six months after her abduction, people found her — she couldn't remember how exactly, but some people told her afterward that a man had been worried to see his neighbors disappearing and not coming back to their home after a few nights — and the young girl was put in an orphanage.

It was in this place that she met Rachel.

It was also to her, and only her, that she related what had happened to her, so she would not forget it, afraid to think that she could have made everything up, so she would not fall into madness.

Rachel was her cornerstone, the link still holding her onto the earth, allowing her to move forward in quest of justice and peace.

Even if, to reach this peace of mind, she had to come to vengeance and to murder.

* * *

Rachel was walking slowly in the hallway, with Quinn just behind her. She didn't know if she should look everywhere, explore every square centimeter with her gaze to make sure that there was no danger, or run away from this filthy view, this blood marbling the walls and the furniture, this color which was attacking her eyelids and was making her nauseous.

She held out her hand, grasped the blonde's between her fingers for a few instants to be sure of her presence.

With a tight feeling in her throat, Rachel asked her how many bodies there were in the house.

"Four," Quinn answered.

She could have said a hundred and Rachel would have had the same reaction. She repressed a shiver and kept moving.

The hallway seemed interminable. The few paintings and pictures hung on the walls hadn't been spared by the blood of the victims.

They arrived at the bottom of the stairs, where the corridor split in two. Quinn softly patted her shoulder and made her go left, where was the dining room.

The door was wide open. Rachel only needed to make a single step forward to understand what had happened in this room.

A man was sitting down on one of the chairs, his upper body slumped against the table. A gaping wound opened onto his skull, pouring for probably more than one hour his blood all around him. He hadn't had the time to do a single movement; the injury showed that he had been killed at point blank range. In cold blood. He hadn't seen it coming.

Rachel put her hand in front of her mouth. And this liquid which was still flowing, dripping gloomily on the floor...

She turned around. "Let's go check the others," she said with a hesitant voice.

Then Quinn led her to the first floor, into what seemed to be a teenager bedroom. Two bodies were lying inside, one in the middle of the bed, the other collapsed behind the door of the closet.

They looked young. It was Rachel's first thought that wasn't related to the violence of the murders. They must be around twenty years old, no more. They were only children when Quinn had been kidnapped, and without any doubt blind to what their parents had been up to and had made her endure. Did Quinn really need to kill them if they were innocent ? Rachel didn't dare ask the question — it was too soon to ask questions.

The two young women went downstairs, into the bathroom. Quinn opened the door, ready to welcome the fourth and last corpse, but didn't find anything — only bloody red on the once spotless tiling.

"Quinn ? Is everything alright ?"

Rachel's voice seemed far away, almost foreign because of the panic slowly filling her.

"She's not here anymore," she mumbled.

"What ?"

"The woman I killed. She's not here. Her body's not here."

At this moment, Rachel didn't believe her. The house was empty — if the three other bodies were the exception — and nobody could have run away. They would have heard something, they would have seen something. It was impossible that someone could have survived to the weapon that Quinn was holding tight against her body, this shotgun that had left a gaping hole in a man's skull and had made two more victims upstairs.

Given the amount of blood, there shouldn't be a lot left in the organism of this fourth person.

"Are you certain she was there ?" Rachel inquired, even though she knew perfectly well that the question was useless.

"I'm sure. I dragged her here to..."

The blonde didn't finish her sentence, staring at a bloodstain on the floor — one more, Rachel thought. She frowned.

"What is it ?"

But Quinn didn't answer, preoccupied with the floor, and the marks on the parquet and on the tiles, which showed that a body had been dragged into the room.

Then left the room.

Rachel pressed violently her hand on her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Quinn made her sign to keep silence, to keep her calm, she prepared her gun, and carefully went out of the bathroom, ready to use her weapon once more. She kept her eyes on the tracks on the floor, looking up from time to time so she wouldn't be surprised by anything.

Rachel was following her closely, breathing loudly but trying by all means not to panic. She wouldn't be afraid of anything with Quinn by her side, she believed it with all her strength.

Time seemed to tick over. There was not a single sound in the house, which didn't reassure the two women.

The prints were leading to the front door, to their great confusion. Worried, the blonde pushed the door with the tip of her weapon, only to discover the virgin land, the two cars that were parked there, the vastness of the forest in the distance. The mist had lifted, but the sun wasn't visible yet because of the thick clouds covering the sky.

Still wanting to check that they hadn't missed something, Quinn went down on the stoop, took two steps forwards before freezing upon hearing a bloodcurdling cry.

A terrified cry.

It was Rachel's voice.

She turned around immediately, pointing her gun in front of her, and she saw two silhouettes struggling on the ground.

One of them was sticky with blood.

Different sensations went through her at once. Her hands, like her entire body, became paralyzed. She couldn't fire, for fear of hurting Rachel. She was feeling guilty, too, to not having checked that her victims were well and truly dead, especially this woman, the one by which all of this had begun in the first place.

Then the adrenaline worked, and Quinn found herself running to the house, hitting with all her strength the blood-drenched body of the woman who was gripping tightly Rachel with her arms.

In the tumult of the struggle, nobody really knew what to do. The woman was screaming like a possessed person, fighting with all she had despite her belly holed by a bullet from a shotgun and the blood blocking her face, blinding her bloodshot eyes.

Rachel ended up escaping from her grip and, horrified, saw that the woman had just brought a large kitchen knife out of one of her pockets. She stepped back instinctively until her foot tripped over something.

The shotgun.

She barely had the time to pick it up that a cry of pain rang out. Her wide open eyes stared at the woman's hand holding the handle of the knife, and the blade disappearing into Quinn's back.

Without thinking, crying out in rage and distress, Rachel raised the weapon and hit her with the butt.

A muffled sound resonated feebly in the room. The half-human shape had been propelled backward with the impact, two meters away from Quinn. Rachel didn't need more encouragement to raise the gun once more and to shoot, as many times as she could until she heard the clicking sound and that the last echoes of the bullets died.

Then she got closer to the disfigured body — she didn't think that a body could contain as much blood and suffer that many deformations — and, once again, she lifted the weapon to bring it down on what was left of the woman's face. She stroke, as many times as she was able to, with all her anger and her despair, the tears flowing down her cheeks, hearing her bones cracking as she hit, splashing this vermilion on the ground, again and again — until she felt an arm on her shoulder, barely forcing her to lower her gun.

"It's over, Rachel."

She instantly broke into sobs.

Filled with rage, she threw away the shotgun on the inert body lying at her feet. Quinn embraced her within her arms, whispering the same sentence in her ear.

"It's over."

Nodding silently against her shoulder, Rachel hugged her back.

She had promised herself that nobody would touch Quinn ever again, and she couldn't fail to keep her promise — not now, not ever.

* * *

The body had been abandoned in the doorway, after that the two women had checked once more that they were the only two living souls of the house.

Again, Rachel went out to get her first-aid kit and, her eyes still wet, she gazed at Quinn's torn sweatshirt, unveiling fresh cuts.

Keeping herself from crying in front of the blonde, she took her hand and led her upstairs, into one of the rooms which had been miraculously spared by the bloody carnage. She suddenly stopped on the threshold of the door, realizing that Quinn could feel uncomfortable in the habitation that had been the scene of horrific events.

"Does it bother you if we do it here ?" she said in a soft voice.

"No," Quinn answered. "It's going to be alright. We have nothing to be afraid of anymore."

The young woman took off her tattered clothes, then her t-shirt. On her back were sprawled two purple lines, one larger and more impressive than the other, gaping. Rachel bit her lip to prevent herself from crying. It was her fault if Quinn was in this state; she should have been more careful, she shouldn't have let herself get caught by surprise, she should have...

"Rachel, are you alright ? Do you want me to do it myself ?"

Coming back to her senses, the small dark-haired girl slowly shook her head, made Quinn sit down on the edge of the double bed while she was preparing her equipment.

She told herself bitterly that she had been right when she brought this many bandages.

* * *

Quinn was naked above her waist, holding her hair with a shaky hand while Rachel was busy sewing up the two marks made by a knife.

The blonde didn't make a single noise, gritting her teeth when the pain was becoming too strong, and Rachel wondered if it was what she had to do all her life; keeping quiet and putting up with the suffering in silence, unable to describe what she was feeling.

She was finished after one hour of conscientious work. Almost automatically, she softly slid her fingers on the sinuous threads that were holding together two pieces of flesh formerly reunited.

She was blaming herself for giving Quinn an umpteenth scar, visible and indelible.

Rachel laid a kiss in the hollow of her neck and her shoulder before telling her that she could put her clothes back on.

"I'm going to get clothes in my car, I'll be back," she assured the blonde so that she wouldn't worry.

The latter held her back anyway, putting her hand on her wrist and looking at her for a long time.

"Thanks for coming," she said after a beat. "And for... what you did for me."

Rachel smiled. "It's natural. I wasn't going to let you go."

For the first time of the day, Quinn smiled. She smiled a sad smile, almost nonexistent, but a smile nonetheless, turning Rachel's insides upside down. Perhaps that, finally, this day was the beginning of the end of her suffering.

* * *

 _Drape your arms around me and softly say,_  
 _Can we dance upon the tables again... ?_

 _— Laura, Bat for Lashes._


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's the next chapter. I hope you like the story so far, I'd really like to know what you think about it. Don't hesitate to leave a review !**

* * *

A killer.

That's what Quinn had become, at least in the eyes of the others.

To Rachel, she was still the strong, independent woman she had always been, the little girl who had to go through a thousand horrors and who had survived. The woman from which one had stolen a part of her and who had avenged herself, who had taken the law into her own hands.

The woman who has spent fifteen years of her life looking for the murderers of her parents and her sister, and who had finally found them.

She was also the woman she loved. Nothing she could do could ever change it.

* * *

She found Quinn in the living room of the first floor, sitting on the ground, looking away. The clothes that Rachel gave her covered the scars streaking her back, even though she could figure them out because of the wet stains darkening the fabric in some areas.

Quinn turned her head toward her and offered her a tired smile. The small dark-haired girl smiled back at her as best as she could, despite all the emotions she was feeling, from sadness to dread by way of total incomprehension.

She sat down beside her, facing the bay window. It probably was past noon — the sun was already high, hidden by the mountainous mist, unable to warming up the freezing atmosphere surrounding them.

Rachel briefly asked herself if Quinn had regrets, if she was feeling guilty over what she did.

Then Rachel wondered if _she_ had regrets. If she thought that what Quinn had done was wrong or deserved to be punished.

Would she ever dare think to denounce her?

She shook her head to stop her thoughts from going this way. She knew that Quinn hadn't had the choice. Neither had she; if she had to choose between protecting Quinn or protecting her views on morality or on the good, she wouldn't hesitate a single second.

Quinn must have felt her internal struggle because she leaned toward her and asked her if she was alright.

As if nothing could go wrong in a house full of corpses and blood. As if Quinn hadn't just coldly slaughtered the four members of the same family, as if nothing had just occurred here.

"It's going to be OK," Rachel answered. "It'll be better when we'll get out of here, but... I think it's going to be OK."

Quinn swallowed. "I'm sorry to have put you through all this. All those... This is my fault. I should have minded my own business, and let you out of this."

The brunette nodded. Everything would have been simpler if she hadn't met Quinn, if the latter hadn't dragged her into this.

But Quinn hadn't pushed her into doing anything — she had chosen to help her, of her own free will, to support her, and she would never regret her decision.

"I don't blame you," Rachel said after a long silence interrupted by their breathing.

"I know," the blonde replied. "But I am still sorry."

She squeezed Rachel's wrist between her bloody fingers, before kissing her temple, her clammy, dirty hair.

She would probably never tell her, but she couldn't have done a thing without Rachel by her side. If she hadn't come to her rescue, Quinn would have undoubtedly never come back. She wouldn't have had the strength.

* * *

After having eaten something — as much as their stomachs could — the issue of the corpses couldn't be left ignored any longer.

They had to leave, quickly, before somebody would notice the sudden disappearance of a whole family, before somebody would pay a visit to them and discover what had happened.

Rachel looked at the dead body collapsed on the dining table with a desperate look. There would be so much blood to wipe away, and they had so little time.

She didn't even know how to get rid of a body — was it only possible? To wipe every single mark of a formerly living being, without anybody finding out what had really happened?

She looked for Quinn; she would probably know what to do.

The young woman had taken shelter in Rachel's car. When the latter came to find her, she got out reluctantly and, wanting to leave as soon as possible this damned place, walked briskly to the house.

The two women first took care of gathering the bodies, before they even thought of what was coming next. They immediately set to work, not wishing to linger in this place.

Quinn and Rachel agreed on leaving the corpses in the bathroom of the first floor, and they first began by taking down the two teenagers' bodies which were still upstairs. Rachel stopped herself from retching when she had to lift the legs sticky with the blood of the young boy. Her hands were slipping, and she had to stop twice before she could take the stairs. Quinn gave her a sorry, but confident look and they went back upstairs to take care of the other body.

Rachel vainly tried not to look at this hole, right in the middle of the fifteen-year-old girl's torso, this hole that let pieces of bones and ragged muscles show through. The blood was dripping down on the parquet and the carpets, and Rachel then thought that it would be impossible to clean all this blood, no matter how much time they had.

While they were moving her to the bathroom, the phone rang.

Quinn and Rachel looked at each other with an alarmed look, having forgotten the very existence of this item.

Puzzled and on her guard, the taller of the two women laid the corpse down and came closer to the source of the noise, a common ringtone which rang six times before dying in a complete silence.

Quinn watched the handset and noticed that there was no answering machine linked to it. She waited again for one minute or two, then she unplugged the device connecting them to the outside world. She also picked up the phone, leaving it swaying at the end of the wire.

She came back to help Rachel. The man's body was by far heavier and more difficult to support, despite the liters of blood he had lost during those last few hours. They finally dragged him on the floor, leaving umpteenth red, indelible, menacing marks on the parquet.

When the woman's turn came, Rachel looked away.

She couldn't bear to see again this disfigured, inhuman face.

Her hand was still holding the knife which had been used to stab Quinn's back.

With rage, Rachel took it out from her with a kick once she was thrown away with the three other corpses. She also kicked her in what was left of her shinbones, then her skull, watching a shapeless, grayish mass coming out of it and spreading around her.

To her eyes, it was all she deserved.

* * *

"Will we leave them like this?"

Rachel's voice sounded strange in the car.

They had taken the time to clean up as best as they could, wiping away the blood and the dirt from their hands and their skin, and while they were at it, they also changed into a fresh set of clothes.

Since then, they hadn't come out of the car. It was like a shelter to them, a resting place away from the agitation taking place only a few meters away from them. From here, they could see the trees and the mountains, and even beyond; perhaps they would go to that beyond, once they would be finished here. They would still have to talk about their next destination, the place which would welcome them.

Running away. Rachel would have never thought that one day, she would have to run away. Weird enough, the idea didn't bother her.

She felt Quinn sigh and shrug her shoulders.

"I don't know, Rachel. Probably. What do you want to do? We won't be able to erase every one of our tracks, obviously."

Of course not, they wouldn't be able to. The house was huge, they would need days, even weeks. But Rachel couldn't bear staying more than a few hours in this shack. She had seen enough, felt enough. The corpses had already begun their process of decomposition, and the smell made her want to vomit. And this blood which stuck to the shoes as soon as they crossed the doorstep...

They wouldn't be able to do it, it was certain.

Rachel tried shyly another approach of the problem.

"And if we... if we only take care of the bodies?"

"What do you mean?"

Quinn furrowed her brows. The small brunette swallowed.

"I mean... We're not going to leave them inside, without doing anything else, are we? We're going to put them elsewhere, right?"

"Where do you want to put them, Rachel?" Quinn asked, perplexed. "No matter where we hide them, the police will come to find them. And anyway, given the mess we've made inside, there's no use in wanting to erase our tracks anymore."

"I'm not talking about wiping our tracks. I'm talking about burying the corpses."

Rachel feared that Quinn had broken her neck when she quickly turned her head toward her. She looked at her for a long time, visibly trying to control herself.

"It's out of the question."

"But... they are still human beings," Rachel softly claimed.

"I said that it is out of the question."

"But why, Quinn ? They still deserve..."

"They deserve nothing at all!" she yelled. The light silence that followed was chilling. "Nothing! Not even a grave or a tombstone! They killed my parents, Rachel, they killed Frannie, and they abducted me! They beat me up and they treated me like a slave, like the scum of the earth! I lived through countless horrors in this cellar, without seeing the light of the sun for six months. I still have nightmares about it today, as for the last fifteen years. They have deprived me of having a normal childhood, they killed the only family I ever had, and you'd want us to... to bury them?"

"I am sorry."

Rachel had spoken so low that Quinn thought she had hallucinated. But she knew she wasn't dreaming when she saw tears shining on her friend's cheeks, her shifty eyes looking down and not wanting to meet her gaze, her hands gripping each other and her nails digging into her flesh.

At this instant, Quinn was ashamed of herself. She sighed heavily, conscious that Rachel's legitimate question didn't deserve such a sharp, hot-headed answer. She bit her lip, hating herself from looking like those monsters. She had had no scruple killing them, one by one, and yet she wanted more than anything not to look like them.

The seconds passed by slowly in the car, while the little dark-haired girl was trying as much as she could to stop her tears from flowing and that Quinn was fighting the sobs threatening to escape from her throat.

"I'm sorry, Rachel."

The words were accompanied by a hand that looked for the brunette's one, squeezing her softly.

Quinn said it again, then she began to weep silently.

* * *

The night fell quickly. The two girls still hadn't left their car.

They hadn't talked about the bodies anymore, and they probably wouldn't mention them again more than a handful of times. It wasn't the most important thing at this instant.

Exhausted, the two women had laid down on the backseat, where they finished shedding their tears on their shoulders. Then Quinn had cuddled up against Rachel, as they did since they were kids and they shared the same room in the orphanage.

Rachel had always succeeded in calming her down, after she woke up with a start because of another nightmare or because she just couldn't sleep.

The brunette was stroking her hair wordlessly (Quinn hadn't made a single noise since this afternoon), letting the blonde breathe the air between her neck and her shoulder, recovering from her emotions.

She had almost forgotten that barely more than a few hours before, she had committed four murders.

Nobody seemed to be aware of that case; no police car, no patrol, no neighbor had come here, to this lost house. It was relieving the pressure only for a moment, allowing her to breathe a little better and to think about what they must do the following day.

Rachel held Quinn a bit tighter.

"You know..." Rachel whispered softly, keeping on sliding her fingers through her thin hair stuck by blood and sweat, "I'm sorry for earlier. I shouldn't have said that to you."

She felt Quinn lightly shake her head against her body, then she pulled apart to be able to look her in the eye.

"I'm not mad at you," she simply said. Before adding, still looking at her : "I love you."

Rachel felt her heart missing a beat.

Then, the young blonde took back her place against her chest, breathing slowly in the silence engulfing her little by little.

Rachel let her fall asleep against her, and she also began to drift toward sleep with her. A light smile adorned her lips. She knew that Quinn loved her, but she had never told her, not before tonight.

In the darkness that was falling around them, she closed her eyes, but not before having kissed Quinn on her forehead and wished her goodnight.

* * *

They had been awake only for one hour when Quinn decided they'd better get going now before the sun would be fully up, so they would not be noticed by anyone.

Firstly, Quinn, as a precaution, decided to conceal the car she had rented a few days earlier by releasing the handbrake and pushing the car from the top of a rocky road winding until the bottom of the valley. She hoped nobody would find it too soon — anyway, they could never make the connection with her. She had taken precautions and signed the rental contract under a false name and a false address.

Then she got behind the steering wheel of Rachel's car, waited for the latter to be well settled to start the engine toward elsewhere, away from here.

Behind them, the house was slowly beginning to burst into flame.

Before Quinn was throwing the other car in a ravine, Rachel had retrieved the gas from it in a jerrycan and drenched the inside of the stone building with it. When she had entirely emptied the can, she stroke a match and threw it on the doorstep. The first floor of the house instantly caught fire, the flames burning without making any distinction between the painting masterpieces, the pictures, and the souvenirs, and the corpses rotting in the bathroom.

It had been the only solution to wipe their tracks at best.

A smell of burnt flesh tickled her nostrils, and she turned around quickly. Her hands reeked of gas, but she welcomed the scent with relief.

She could follow the spectacle in the rear-view mirror, but she preferred to tear her gaze off it and look in front of her, where Quinn was driving them.

She didn't mind, as long as Quinn was with her. It was her only concern.

* * *

 _Is it alright for you to feel this way?_  
 _Put your head in my lap, the world will go away_  
 _We can go there, we can go anywhere_  
 _We can go there._

 _— Alright, Kinnie Starr._


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the delay. Hope you're still reading and that I'm not writing for nothing. I know I'm not, because I enjoy writing.  
**

* * *

Quinn was driving below the authorized speed, firstly so they wouldn't get noticed, but also because she knew they weren't in any danger for the moment. She turned the radio on every half hour on the local and national news channel, to know if one had reported the disappearance — or the death — of the people she had killed, or a house which had mysteriously caught fire at sunrise.

There was nothing. Nobody on their heels. Nobody was even suspecting that they were on the run.

It reassured her a little, and it gave her time to think about their next stage.

They would have to find a place to sleep, to stay for a while.

They could rent a room in a motel for this night, maybe two nights, but no more; by then, the news of the fire and the quadruple crime would be widely spread, and the county and state polices would be looking for them without a doubt.

They had nonetheless an advantage : they couldn't be recognized, at least for now. As soon as the forensics would know that the blaze had been criminal, they would do everything to look for DNA, if that was possible. Quinn didn't know if they could then track then down, get their names and pictures, but she would rather not take any risk. She was giving herself three days to put as much distance as possible between the police and their car.

She sighed, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

She felt like a fugitive, but still didn't feel like she had done something wrong. Of course, Quinn had killed people; four people of a same family, without scruples, without feeling the least bit of emotion except relief every time she pulled the trigger. But she didn't do it because she wanted to, only to avenge herself. If there had been another way to do justice, less bloody, she would have chosen it without any hesitation.

But no matter the way she would have done it, Quinn could have never get back the childhood they had stolen and the family they had taken away. Nothing could ever change that.

On the other hand, she made sure that the Kanes would never do wrong again, that no other child would have to face what she had to go through during six months, and it appeased, only for an instant, her heart eaten away by the pain.

At least, she could go back to sleep without having any nightmare.

* * *

After a two-hour drive, the car stopped hurriedly on the roadside, and Rachel ran out of it to vomit.

It was almost eleven in the morning and they had just crossed the Illinois' border, toward the West.

Quinn also got out to come help her. She put a hand on her back and held back her hair with the other hand, while Rachel was emptying the contents of her stomach.

A few minutes passed, while Rachel was catching her breath, inhaling big breathes of air and accepting gratefully the bottle of water Quinn was handing her.

The two women took advantage of this improvised stop to take a break, ten minutes later, in a fast-food on one of the freeway exits to eat a little and stretch their legs.

The restaurant, large and empty, was perfect to remain incognito while eating something somewhat substantial.

Sitting in front of a salad and a glass of water, Rachel was eating slowly, casting a glance from time to time at the view and the highway which stretched as far as the eye can see. Quinn, as for herself, was looking at the half full room, trying to guess, at the expression of the other guests and the employees, if they knew they were sought, or could be at any moment.

Nobody was paying attention to them, however.

Apart from a man, with his elbows propped on the counter, who had continuously stared at them since they had entered the restaurant.

Quinn waited for Rachel to finish eating, then she slipped a few words in her ear which made her nod. They stood up, went out, and noticed that the man had also stood up and was now following them outside.

The young blonde woman did her best to not look in his direction, so she wouldn't see his obscene look toward them, and she hurriedly unlocked the car so they would continue their journey and drive as far as possible. She had barely taken the keys out of her pocket when rough voice, full of hidden meaning called out to them.

"Hey, beautiful! Where are you going like that?"

"Don't look back," Quinn slipped at Rachel, trying to hurry a bit more.

"No need to hurry, you know," the man continued. "I'm sure we would forgive two pretty girls like you if they're late."

The small brunette stopped herself from retching, and she saw Quinn clenching her fists to try to contain herself. The man, probably drunk and even high, from the sound of his voice and his approximate elocution, was still talking to them. She tried as best as she could to disregard his words, while Quinn had finally unlocked the doors. Rachel slipped inside the vehicle, but she hadn't noticed that he had come closer and was almost pressing the blonde against the car door.

"You know, we could have a lot of fun, the two of us," he mumbled while leering at her chest. Quinn could smell his breath full of alcohol and closed her eyes. She was going to scream, or hit, or maybe both if he touched her. She wouldn't hesitate a single second.

But he was still talking, and said something that chilled her to the bone.

"Besides, I'm sure that you're a whore."

She hadn't had the time to do a single movement because the man was suddenly thrown back, then violently fell on his back, losing his balance.

Rachel had heard everything and would not let him get away with it.

The dark-haired woman put her foot on the man's chest, pressing down just enough so that he couldn't get back on his feet, and she talked to him in a low but audible voice, sending shivers down his spine.

"You're going to take back what you just said."

The man looked like he didn't understand, then he burst out laughing.

"Why ?" he chuckled. "You think you scare me, kid? I'm also going to take care of you, babe, and when I'll be finished..."

He hadn't had the time to finish his sentence; Rachel had violently kicked him in the jaw. A bone cracked dully. She then went to the car truck, took Quinn's shotgun, and came back in front of him, pointing the barrel directly at his skull.

The man watched her with an incredulous look, still grinning, and Quinn began to get scared.

The parking lot being a little far from the restaurant, none of the customers could see the scene, and it suited quite well the two women.

"You're going to take back what you said," Rachel repeated. "I won't tell you a third time."

The man settled for a raucous, disrespectful laughter, and Rachel placed the barrel directly in his mouth.

This time, he wasn't laughing anymore.

"Apologize, right now," she said in a voice still as quiet as before, but terribly cold. "This is your last chance."

She applied more pressure on the weapon, pushing at the back of his throat, to make him understand she wasn't joking anymore; he probably felt it too because every mark of pleasure had vanished from his features. He went white, and his eyes filled with fear when he saw that a thin finger was ready to squeeze the trigger. Quinn was watching the scene with a frightened look. She was fearing what would happen next, not for the man — she could really not care less for the life of a stranger harassing her — but for Rachel.

She was scaring her. Her death stare was devoid of pity.

The man nimbly nodded against the barrel of the gun, and Quinn sighed when Rachel took it off so that he could speak.

Apologizing quickly and looking down, he got up at full speed and ran away in the opposite direction. Rachel waited for him to be out of side before putting the shotgun away, and finally check that Quinn was doing good.

The latter nodded feverishly. "It's going to be alright, it's okay," she said softly. "But... was it really worth it to do... this?"

"He hadn't had to talk to you like that," Rachel cut her off. "He only got what he deserved."

Quinn nodded again, silently, then, before Rachel would settle on the passenger side, held her back by the hand.

"Thank you."

She smiled at her, grateful, and the young brunette smiled back at her.

* * *

The two women took back their drive for a short instant, stopping less than one hour after in a small town near the border between Iowa and Illinois. This place wasn't much frequented, which decided them to leave their car for one hour and wander in the town center.

It was cold, but the wind was warm, foreshadowing the end of winter soon.

Rachel took advantage of this opportunity to visit some clothing shops, buying several of them for herself and for Quinn. She hadn't taken enough of clothes with her when she left her apartment, two days earlier — but she also hadn't predicted the turn the events would have taken, however.

The young blonde woman had, as for herself, spent her time in a bookstore away from the tumult of downtown, striding across the shelves and running a finger reverently on the spines of the books which caught her eye.

She sighed softly when she went out of the store. She and Rachel looked like they had a perfectly normal life, in the eyes of the world, and even in her own eyes. They strolled in town, and they would have to move on again any time now, running away.

The only thing preventing them from leading an ordinary life, was this family. Those people who had made her life hell, fifteen years earlier.

But it belonged in the past now — they weren't living persons anymore, but burnt out corpses. They couldn't hurt her anymore.

Perhaps if they managed to slip through the net of the police and justice, they could finally have a reasonable life, without torturer nor blood nor cadavers, without fleeing and without looking back on the past.

Quinn saw Rachel coming out of a store, carrying a bag in each of her hands, and she smiled absentmindedly.

A life with Rachel sounded like the most beautiful promise.

But for this to happen, they first had to be safe.

* * *

Quinn drove while Rachel was sleeping in the back of the car. She spent the afternoon behind the wheel, stopping only after five hours, when the fatigue became apparent and the luminosity was too weak for her to keep on driving.

She didn't have to wait much longer to see an illuminated sign coming up, indicating that a motel was less than two miles away.

She parked the car, less than five minutes later, on an almost empty parking lot, in front of a long and narrow building on one level. The motel looked like any other one; in white bricks, with windows every meter or so, a bright red roof and a sign displaying the name of the motel and the mention "Open" flickering in the dusk.

Quinn cut off the engine, then she turned around to see if Rachel was still sleeping.

She still was, curled up on herself, a coat by way of blanket on her legs. Quinn had a sad smile. The young woman had to suffer and endure more than she would have ever imagined; those last days had surely affected her more than she first thought.

Thinking about it, she found herself incredibly exhausted, too, having not really slept for some time, and she said to herself that they would surely be better inside, inside a warm bed with clean sheets.

Reluctantly, she reached out and gently shook Rachel's shoulder to wake her up. The young woman moaned softly, murmured some inconsistencies and sank back into her dreams.

Quinn smiled softly, and she settled for just watching her for long minutes.

Rachel looked so peaceful, her regular breathing soothing the blonde who was gently stroking her shoulder and her hair, enjoying the feeling of warmth and peace gradually filling her. She kept on doing the same movement until the small brunette stretched slowly, opening sleepy pupils on the two green eyes looking at her with affection.

Then, she seemed to recover her senses and noticed that the vehicle was idle.

"We're not driving anymore?"

Quinn shook her head. "We're going to take a break and spend the night in a real bed," she answered with a half-smile.

The two women took the belongings they needed in a bag and went to the motel entrance. A man welcomed them without looking at them more than a second, coming back to the newspaper he was skimming through carelessly.

"How can I help you?" he asked with a drawling voice.

The taller woman spoke. "We would like a double room, please."

"Single or double bed?"

"The less expensive possible."

The young boy finally lifted his eyes from his magazine, observed a bit more carefully the two customers and he turned toward the board holding the keys of the rooms. Rachel noted that no more than a dozen were actually occupied.

The hotelier put a key down with a room number on the counter.

"It's going to cost you fifty-seven dollars per night," the man said, raising his eyebrows slightly. "You have to pay now."

They paid with Rachel's debit card and took the key, then went to their room.

The room was of average size even though the two women felt a little squeezed — but it was still better than having to sleep in the car. A double bed occupied most of the space, framed by two nightstands each holding a bedside lamp. A small bathroom consisting of a shower and a sink was near the door. A TV was hung on the wall in the corner of the room and a small chest of drawers, two chairs and a wooden table completed the somewhat obsolete furniture.

Rachel put her bag down on one of the chairs and sat down on the bed, letting out a sigh of relief mixed with fatigue.

She touched with the tip of her finger the clean, smooth sheets on the bed, enjoying the sensation she had missed during those last two days. She wanted nothing more than slip under the duvet and sleep for days and days, until the beating of her heart would calm down and her throbbing headache would disappear.

Rachel splashed her face with water before changing clothes and going to bed, Quinn following her minutes after.

She frowned when she saw the blonde slipping under the sheets in her underwear, unveiling her back ribbed with red.

She had almost forgotten the scars inflicted by the women with the kitchen knife.

In the darkness, she noticed the large sinuous line marbling her shoulder blades and her ribs, the threads which tied up her flesh and held it in one piece.

Rachel swallowed, reached out shakily with her hand to graze with the tip of her finger the stitches she had done the day before. Quinn whined softly with pain and Rachel removed her hand to let it rest it a little lower, on her hip.

"I am sorry," she whispered. She kissed the nape of her neck and said the same words again, feeling Quinn shake her head against her lips, then the latter turned around.

"It's not your fault, Rachel."

They looked at each other for a long while, trying to guess their shapes and their features while the night was falling and the darkness was gradually engulfing them. Rachel wondered how much time their flight would last; if they would have to stay on the roads forever, if they would be arrested at the next state border, if they could ever have a normal life.

She asked Quinn the question, who kept silent for long minutes before smiling softly.

"I've always dreamed of seeing California."

* * *

 _I've known mornings white as diamonds_  
 _Silent from a night so cold_  
 _Such a stillness, calm as the owl glides_  
 _Our lives are buried in snow._

 _— White As Diamonds, Alela Diane._


	5. Chapter 5

**God dammit, this chapter is ready for weeks and I haven't posted it ! I was sure I did. Well, so now you will have two chapters in two days, the second will be posted tomorrow. Enjoy !**

* * *

Quinn woke up with a start several times that night, shaking Rachel from her sleep at the same time. The blonde woman would then extract herself from her embrace, drink a glass filled with tap water and go back to sleep straight away into her friend's arms, hoping that her nightmares would leave her alone for the rest of the night.

They didn't.

Despite Rachel's soothing murmurs in her ear and her cautious caresses on her hips and her back, Quinn was unremittingly disturbed by the visions of a house put to fire and the sword, of a decimated family rotting in a bathroom, of a woman with mad eyes who had a large shiny knife pointed toward her. She saw blue and red lights flashing in the distance, coming closer to their car inexorably, blinding and dazzling.

She also dreamed, from time to time, of fine sandy beaches and gentle heat, of great spaces, of fields dried out by the sun and of freedom.

Quinn didn't really know which one of these dreams would come true.

It was a little after seven in the morning when the tall blonde gave up the idea of finding sleep again, left the warm bed where Rachel was still asleep to take a shower.

Once inside the little bathroom, she took her clothes off, let the water run for ten minutes on her naked skin which was still bearing the scars of the carnage that had happened two days earlier. Her back hurt, her wounds tingled and itched, but she didn't mind; the sensation wasn't unpleasant. And also, she finally had the chance to take a shower, to wash for the first time in three days.

The lukewarm water wiped away the blood still stuck on her skin, in her hair, under her nails, as if it had never been there. Quinn lathered every centimeter of her body until she felt clean, until she didn't feel soiled anymore by the splashes of blood of the Kanes.

Only thinking about this name was making her sick, mad with rage.

She closed the tap and dried herself meticulously, taking care of not reopen the cuts which were slowly healing on her back.

When she came back into the room, dry and wearing the clothes she bought the day before, Rachel was still asleep, squeezing a pillow in her fists. Quinn let her rest another moment, even though she knew they had to leave as soon as possible, toward the west.

Quinn opened the backpack she had taken with her and found inside her lighter and a few cigarettes at the bottom of a pocket. She lit one after having opened the window, leaned on her elbows and inhaled the smoke in the cold, prickly morning air.

She closed her eyes for a moment. The events of those last days had blended into each other so fast that she barely had the time to think about it. Since the day she had traced her torturers, by an unfortunate chance — she had simply looked for the names of the people who had lived in Ohio in 2001, the year she had been abducted, and who had moved out about six months later, and she had gone through registers and libraries and hundreds of websites for months and for years, until she found this photo, the picture of this woman, her icy grin and her eyes that she could never forget.

It had been almost too easy.

Even after having seen her dead, having killed her with her own hands, she knew that she could never forget her.

"I thought that you had quit smoking."

Quinn turned around and saw Rachel half sitting on the bed, resting on her elbows. The latter stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, glided her thin fingers through her disheveled hair ant sat more properly, resting her head between her hands, waiting for Quinn's reply.

"I stopped," she said while shrugging. "I had stopped. I only had a few cigarettes left in my bag, and I..." Quinn sighed weakly. "I don't know. I needed that, I think."

"I understand."

They didn't say anything more for one minute or two, Quinn still smoking her cigarette and Rachel observing her with a serene look.

When she had finished, the blonde stubbed out her cigarette on the window sill before closing it. She then sat down beside Rachel, glided her nails through her hair, a shy smile at the tip of her lips.

"We have to go now, Rachel. We still have a long way to go, and so little time before us."

The smaller woman sighed softly, nodding wordlessly with a resigned air. Quinn suddenly felt bad for making Rachel endure all those sacrifices. She didn't ask for it, after all, and yet she was now involved in a road trip which would last only God knew for how long.

"I'm sorry to put you through all of this," she said in a low voice. "I promise you that it will be all over soon, that we could finally live in peace. Safely."

"I know," Rachel replied and nodded. "This is not your fault, you have to understand that, Quinn. I chose to come with you, to help you go through this ordeal. And I don't regret it."

Rachel took Quinn's hand which was still in her hair, held it for an instant against her face, letting out a sigh of relief at her touch. Knowing that Quinn was close to her was comforting her, warming up her soul, as if nothing could happen to her as long as Quinn was touching her.

She felt herself holding her breath brusquely when the blonde's face slowly came nearer, her hazel eyes landing in turns on her mouth and in her eyes. However, Rachel prevented her from going further by laying two fingers on Quinn's lips. The latter furrowed her brows, a questioning, almost disappointed air painting her features.

"Not now," Rachel murmured. "When all... when everything will be over."

Quinn seemed to understand, and gave her a sad smile.

Rachel squeezed her hand between hers, clutching her bony fingers before bringing them to her mouth to kiss them.

One day she could do more than just that. When she wouldn't be afraid of leaving her home anymore, when she wouldn't feel the need to look behind her at every step. She felt that this moment would come, very soon, once they would be definitely safe.

She trusted Quinn about it.

* * *

Half an hour later, the two women ended up in their car, listening with an attentive, anxious ear to the different radio stations.

The news were passing one after the other in the vehicle, while Rachel was rubbing her hands to warm them up and Quinn was finishing drinking her coffee. The journalist talked about economics, politics, about the last national and international news, environmentalism and entertainment during the five minutes which were dedicated to his program. Then an ad stepped in, and Quinn turned the button to change station.

None of them, however, was talking about some kind of murder that had happened in the state of Indiana — but a small local news station did mention briefly, in its miscellaneous section, a fire that had been spotted by some witnesses on a hill slope, near the manor belonging to a famous family.

Quinn froze, felt a lump in her throat. She saw from the corner of her eye the horrified expression, probably similar to hers, on Rachel's face.

The newsflash barely lasted one minute. It felt like an eternity. As soon as it was over and that the presenter kept on talking about a lighter topic, the young blonde scrambled to turn the ignition key, pushed on the pedal and left the almost deserted parking to get to the highway as fast as possible.

She was feeling upset by these news, more than what she would have thought. She thought she was sufficiently prepared for it, this eventuality which would have be bound to happen one day or another. But she hadn't thought that the shock of hearing it at the radio would be so great.

By the way, she bitterly thought that the authorities had took an awfully lot of time before noticing that such an imposing structure had caught fire.

Perhaps they knew it for a long time, but hadn't disclosed the information to the journalists until now.

Whatever would happen now, they had to keep on driving, ever further.

Rachel remained motionless on her seat without saying a word since they took off like a shot. Quinn noticed it quickly and, glancing at her quickly before keeping her eyes fixed on the road, she asked her if she was feeling okay.

"I don't really know," Rachel replied and shrugged her shoulders. "I am a bit shaken. I was expecting it, of course, but to know that the entire state, and soon the entire country know what happened there... well, it makes me a little uncomfortable."

Quinn nodded silently. She was also feeling uncomfortable, almost embarrassed.

"They won't catch us, Rachel," the taller woman continued after a beat. "They don't know the fire is intentional, that we are between this thing. Damn it, they probably don't even know that there are four corpses completely burnt out in the bathroom! They will need time before linking this event to us, and we will be already far away from them then."

"I hope you're right," Rachel softly said while looking out of the window. The cars passed by relentlessly before the bleak landscape surrounding the highway. Some conifers were heaping up in places, but for the most part, there was nothing to see.

She briefly wondered if Quinn was really thinking what she had just said, if she believed it, if they weren't running any danger for the moment, or if she had only pronounced those sentences to convince herself, to give herself some time.

Probably both, Rachel judged.

They spent the entire day on the roads, taking turns driving so that the other could rest for a few hours, but never really finding sleep. The two women stopped twice to have lunch and to take a break, losing only two hours on their journey which was leading them through hundreds of counties and roads and landscapes.

They couldn't even enjoy it because their mind was so absorbed by other concerns, much more serious.

At about seven in the evening, when dusk declared itself, Quinn proposed to stop for the night.

"But not in a motel," she clarified. "Let's try to stay with a local not too curious."

"Do you think it's better? Wouldn't a motel be more discreet?"

"Not if we keep paying with a debit card. And we don't have to stay in town; we can wander in the country until we stumble upon an old couple of farmers who would offer us hospitality for a night. I think we can manage to do it."

Rachel agreed. After all, whether they would stay in at somebody's house or in a proper establishment, the result would be the same. Quinn drove for an hour more, driving along the border between Nebraska and Colorado, between plains and mountains before finding a place that would serve their purpose.

A small house away from the agitation of downtown below, sitting on a hillside and not overlooked, appeared to them. Quinn slowed down, cut off the engine when they were only a hundred meters away. She watched the smoke coming out of the chimney, the pickup truck parked near the fields, the light coming out of the windows masked by the curtains.

She heard Rachel sigh softly.

"What are we going to tell them?"

Quinn had opened the door and was already beginning to get out.

"We'll figure something out," she replied. "We'll tell them that we are lost, that we had visited an aunt or a distant cousin and that we couldn't find our way back. We'll tell them that we have no GPS, no cellphone, to be more credible. And if they refuse to take pity on us and to welcome us in their house, we'll hit the road again and we'll to the exact same thing with the next house."

It wasn't a bad plan, after all. It would be enough if the people they were going to meet were slightly understanding and not really curious, and it could work. They would spend the night without encountering any problem, they would be warm, they would eat, and would go back the day after. It would be simple, actually.

The two young women each took their backpack and walked along the beaten path, coming closer to the little house.

Now that they had almost reached the house, they could perceive snatches of an unclear conversation between two people, hear the life reigning behind the windows, and even smell the odor coming from the kitchen, making their mouths water.

Quinn took Rachel's hand and walked to the front door and knocked. Long seconds ticked by before the door finally opened.

A black woman about thirty years old, a little chubby, with an affable and smiling face, her hair held in a ponytail and wearing an apron was standing in front of them. She didn't seem the least bit surprised to have visitors, even though her house was more than a kilometer away from any other habitation. Quinn tried to smile casually, cleared her throat and gripped Rachel's hand a little harder.

"Goodnight madam, my name is Quinn, and here is my friend Rachel. We're sorry to disturb you this late, but we got lost, and we were wondering if... if you could host us for a night," she finished in a low voice. "If it doesn't bother you." She was ashamed to lie so pathetically.

"But of course," the young woman exclaimed. "We don't often have guests here, and it would be a pleasure, for my husband and myself, to offer room and board to two young women like you."

The blonde felt herself blushing, both with relief and shame. To abuse poor, innocent people really wasn't like her. But she kept at the back of her mind the reason why she was acting like this, and told herself that there was no other conceivable solution. Anyway, the dice were cast. They couldn't go back anymore.

"Come in," the woman added when she saw that they hadn't moved a muscle. "Make yourself at home. I'm going to make you some warm tea and introduce you to my husband, he will be delighted to meet you. By the way, I didn't introduce myself, I am Mercedes."

The inside was charming, warmly adjusted. All the furniture was made from wood, and a fire was crackling in the fireplace. When they came into the living room, the two young women noticed the several portraits and landscapes decorating the walls, the leather couch and the two armchairs in front of the hearth, the thick carpet with intricate patterns covering parquet.

Everything here was displaying comfort and humility.

Mercedes introduced them to Sam, a blond man with a juvenile face who wore checked shirts and big boots. He was glad to meet them, grinning so genuinely that the two girls felt a pang of emotion within their hearts.

Their hosts invited them to put their light belongings in a room at the back of the house, then begged them to share their meal. Quinn and Rachel could only eat half of their plates before apologizing, pretending to be tired by the long journey they had, and they went into their room. Mercedes and Sam didn't seem the slightest bit offended, and it was even more painful to stand.

"I feel bad for them," Rachel admitted once in the privacy of the bedroom. "They are so kind, so honest. While we are hiding what we are, what we have done. If they only what we just did."

"We don't really have a choice," Quinn said with a faint voice, broken by the fatigue and the emotions. "If they knew what we did, they would denounce us, or worse, they would kill us."

"I know."

Quinn lifted her head, looked at the brown eyes shining in the darkness. She often wondered, since she had called Rachel in the middle of the night three days earlier, what she would have done if she hadn't come, if she hadn't supported her. She would probably have never gotten out of this house alone, she thought bitterly.

She came closer to her, squeezed her hand in hers and smiled.

"I'm glad that you are here, with me."

Quinn didn't need to see Rachel's smile to know it was here, adorning her lips and lighting up her features.

"Me too, Quinn," she replied. Before adding, after a silence which felt like hours : "We'll get through it, you'll see. We're going to get out of this mess, and live the life we deserve. I promise you."

She had the gift to pull a few tears from Quinn, who cried softly in her arms for the major part of the night.

* * *

 _The tops of crags and cliffs, the air is thin_  
 _So we'll find a mountain path on down the hill_  
 _Meet me where the snow melt flows_  
 _It is there, my dear, where we will begin again.  
_

 _— Take Us Back, Alela Diane._


	6. Chapter 6

**Please, do listen to the song at the end of the chapter. This is the original soundtrack for Martyrs, a beautifully sad song, incredibly moving. I'm sorry for the eventual mistakes and for the delay, I have been caught up by exams and work. There's only the epilogue after this chapter, then you won't hear about me for some time ;) I will go back to writing in french since I'm better at it.  
**

* * *

The night had been more restful than the last one, almost restorative. Rachel woke up at dawn to the sound of birds chirping.

She looked around her, disoriented, before remembering the events of the previous day, and sighed with relief when she noticed that she and Quinn were still alive, still in this bedroom, and not kicked out or surrounded by men in uniform pointing their guns toward her. They still had a little respite.

Quinn was still asleep, curled up against her side. Her peaceful features and the slight smile adorning her lips would have almost made Rachel think that they were not running any risk, that everything was alright for now.

She decided not to think about it for the moment; then she reached across the bed, stroking Quinn's hair, her strands tickling her neck and her forehead.

Rachel couldn't have said exactly when she became infatuated with the young woman. Since the first time she met her, fifteen years ago, Quinn had changed a lot. She was only a little girl, and Rachel was too, but Quinn had seen more than any other human being should ever see.

The nurses had brought in the orphanage, one day, a child with shifty eyes who hadn't uttered a single word since her arrival.

She had talked neither to the doctors, nor to the police officers — even though the latter had quickly understood the story behind her muteness when they discovered the torture chamber into which she had been locked up for six months, and when they saw, horrified, the numerous cuts and bruises on her body.

At this moment, nobody had made the connection yet between this child found in the nature and the murder of a whole family six months before, followed by the abduction of their younger daughter.

Rachel didn't know it either, at first. A seven years old girl wasn't supposed to know that the world was full of criminals and violence and bad people.

She had been intrigued by this young blonde girl who didn't talk to anyone — Rachel being very talkative, she had right away got close to her to try to make her talk.

She had found in Quinn only a mute girl, becoming over time an attentive listener, a confidante, then her only friend.

It was only when the police officers came back to the orphanage to unveil the dark truth to Quinn — the assassination of her parents and her sister — that she began to talk.

But only to Rachel.

Quinn sometimes told her about her parents, her family, but mostly about insignificant little things that caught the attention of seven or eight years old little girls for hours, and from time to time, Rachel kept silent and listened to her for as long as she wanted to talk.

Neither of them was adopted — Quinn, for obvious although dreadful reasons, and Rachel (like her friend) was already too to old to caught the attention of potential parents looking for another member of their family. It didn't bother her, on the contrary, because more than anything she wanted to stay by Quinn's side. Except her, Quinn had nothing. Everything she had had already been taken away from her.

Rachel would make sure that blonde could always count on her, whatever would happen.

And despite the four murders she had committed, Rachel would never go back on her word.

She was brought back to reality when she felt Quinn stretching, tightening her grip on her and opening two sleepy eyes. Rachel smiled at her, keeping on playing with the thin hair on the nape of her neck.

Her hair was still the same blond, even after fifteen years.

However, the two women couldn't enjoy longer this rare moment of carefreeness and delight, because they heard footsteps coming closer to their temporary bedroom. Someone knocked three times on the door, then Mercedes' head appeared through the half-open door to announce them that the breakfast was ready.

They nodded and got ready within a few minutes. The next step of their plan was encrusted in their mind, embroiling their thoughts, and didn't leave them for the rest of the morning.

Mercedes and Sam had cooked what seemed like a real feast for the two young women; homemade jam and bread, eggs and cold meats were spread on the whole table. To see all this food made Rachel's mouth water. She was already regretting the moment when they would have to leave and must eat tasteless sandwiches and cold meals barely reheated again, coming from the last supermarket or fast-food they went.

"Please, sit down," Mercedes said when she saw that the girls hadn't moved, still standing up and watching the table and its numerous plates. "Make yourself at home!"

A little embarrassed and with the unpleasant feeling that she was fooling these honest people, Quinn sat at the corner of the table, followed by Rachel.

The meal was delicious, with a warm, almost convivial atmosphere. There was no pressure on the two women's shoulders, their hosts didn't ask them for anything; if she could have done it, Quinn would have asked if they could stay a bit longer, and her heart clenched at the thought that Mercedes and Sam would have probably been glad to house them a few more days, without asking for anything in return.

Ultimately, staying in a motel would have been less painful.

"It was succulent," Quinn said once their plates were empty. "Unfortunately, we can't stay much longer, our families are probably worried about us at the moment."

Another lie — but this one hurt more than the others. Quinn felt sick but tried to swallow back her guilt by thinking about the police that would soon be on their heels.

Mercedes looked a bit aggrieved, almost sad. "Already? You didn't even had the time to digest or to rest! Wait at least one hour or two before taking the wheel, your stomachs will thank you, believe me."

Quinn articulated a shy "thank you", a bit clumsy before their hostess' enthusiasm and maternal comfort.

It was almost with relief that Rachel and Quinn retreated in their bedroom to rest for the last hour they would spent here. They took advantage of the opportunity to take a warm shower, put on some clean clothes and try to empty their minds, not to think about the long hours of driving waiting for them, about what they would do once people would know that they were on the site of the fire.

Unable to stay in this reassuring place away from the world without feeling overwhelmed by remorse, immobility and guilt, the two women decided to leave while it was still early. They each took their bag and went to bid farewell to the owners.

They found Sam in the living room, sitting in an armchair, watching the news channel on the television. The young man turned around when he heard the parquet cracking.

"You're leaving already?" he said with a surprised look. "You can stay, you know. You're not bothering us at all."

"We'd rather leave now," Rachel replied softly. "We have a lot of road ahead of us."

"I understand. It was a pleasure to meet you. Mercedes is outside, if you want to say her goodbye."

Sam hugged the briefly, then went back to the contemplation of his screen.

Quinn and Rachel were heading for the front door when a word said by the journalist caught the attention of the shorter girl. She turned toward the television, frowning upon reading the title of the topic. Her mouth opened slightly when she understood what it was about.

 _Fatal fire near Greenwood, Indiana. No survivor. Two suspects on the run are actively actively sought._

The screen briefly showed a police chief giving a press conference, saying that the police was currently gathering enough information to track down the culprits. No other information would be divulged to the media for now.

Rachel swallowed with difficulty, turned her head toward Quinn to check that they had just read the same thing.

Sam's voice startled her and took her out of her torpor.

"Did you see that? They're only talking about that since yesterday night. It appears that the Kanes held a real empire between her hands and they were respected in the whole state. I've never heard of them before, but it sends shivers down my spine to know that the killers are still out there."

Quinn didn't want to hear more. She caught Rachel's hand and without saying a word, quickly came out of the house to go toward the car parked a little down the way.

A strange feeling assailed her when she saw a familiar figure leaning over the trunk of the car. They quickened their pace, almost running, when they finally arrived near the vehicle.

Mercedes looked up slowly when they were. Her eyes were filled with incomprehension and fear, and were looking both at Rachel and Quinn. She began to slowly shake her head from side to side, incredulous.

"Tell me that it's not you."

Rachel knew what she had seen, what she had heard. She had probably saw the news channel this morning, discovered that two suspects were sought and, out of curiosity, she had looked into the trunk of their car.

She had seen the shotgun, and the few clothes with some blood on them which they couldn't make disappear.

Quinn didn't say a single thing and closed the trunk. Rachel tried to get closer to Mercedes, but the latter instinctively moved back.

"Mercedes," she called softly. "This is not what you think."

"Really?" she replied with a shaky voice that she was trying to get under control. "And how can you prove that it's not you that have killed those poor people?"

"You don't know what happened. You know nothing."

"Why should I believe you? You already lied yesterday, and you can very well do it again."

Silence engulfed them while Rachel looked for Quinn's eyes; the latter imperceptibly shook her head, making her remember that they had to leave quickly.

"We didn't do anything wrong," the small brunette repeated. "I promise you it's true, Mercedes."

Mercedes looked like she was on the verge of tears. They could see the fright in her eyes. Perhaps she was already regretting to have offered hospitality to these two strangers, to have fed and accommodated two possible criminals.

"I... I don't believe you."

Rachel stayed immobile for a moment, then she sighed. She nodded absent-mindedly and looked at Mercedes one last time. "I am sorry," she said before turning around and getting in the car. Quinn was already behind the steering wheel, and she started up as soon as her friend was by her side.

In the rear-view mirror, they saw Mercedes put her hands on her mouth and beginning to cry.

* * *

Like the day before, the two women drove for the most part of the day.

Regularly, Rachel or Quinn would turn the radio on to know the last news about the inquiry on the fire and the quadruple homicide. The investigators were inclined to think that the fire and the murders were voluntary and premeditated — gas residues had been found. However, no information was given about the suspects.

The forensics could analyze the DNA, if they would ever find some on the crime scene, but since neither women was registered on the police files, it wouldn't lead them to nothing.

They still were safe and sound, for the moment.

There was no roadblock in place, at none of the borders they crossed, and they got inexorably closer to their destination, whichever it was.

Quinn took the decision, after having crossed Colorado's dry and sunny plains in a few hours, to get rid of her shotgun. She parked the car near a ravine through which was peacefully flowing a small river, got out of the car and opened the trunk. The barrel and the butt were still bloodstained. Fortunately, nobody had apprehended them, or they would have gotten into serious trouble with this weapon in their possession and no license to authorize them to use one, or even to have one.

The tall blonde took the weapon, removed the cartridges that were inside, walked until she was at the edge of the precipice and threw it as far as she could. She saw the gun falling heavily at the bottom of the canyon and didn't hear the sound of it falling into the water.

She then got back into the car, answered to Rachel's interrogative gaze with a smile that she hoped was reassuring and comforting, and started the engine.

A dozen of kilometers farther, after the border between Colorado and Utah, Quinn drove by another crevasse similar to the first — but with no river, this time — to throw away the box of cartridges that hadn't left her during those last ten days. It was almost still full.

Quinn didn't feel nothing upon seeing the small pieces of lethal metal whirling in the empty space and crashing on the rocks below.

The two women did the same ritual again further away, tying up a bag with their bloody belongings with which they had entered the Kanes' house — including their shoes.

They reached the bigger city of the state, Salt Lake City, some time later, and they could buy what they needed. They paid with Rachel's credit card, not feeling neither the fear to be followed or tracked, nor the need to hide their slightest movements.

Nobody knew who they were, and nobody knew what they had done. To blend in with the crowd and to look natural were still the best ways to not draw attention to themselves.

So Quinn and Rachel spent a part of the afternoon wandering in town, looking up toward the big, imposing monuments, roaming around the Temple and the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The night fell without them noticing it, and they decided together to eat in a small restaurant in town before setting off again.

They only drove for one hour or two before they stopped and, exhausted, they fell asleep in the car in the blink of an eye.

Having parked the car on the heights of the city, they had been woken up at dawn when the sun rose and hit the vehicle with his beams. The light went through the windshield and in a few minutes, fell on Rachel and Quinn's motionless bodies, sleeping in the front of the car. They grimaced when they felt a sharp light attacking their eyelids, warming up their skin, and slowly emerged from sleep.

The view was splendid.

They saw the sun rising slowly behind the mountains, lighting up Salt Lake City with a thousand colors and the metal buildings reflecting each of its rays.

Quinn and Rachel got out of their vehicle to enjoy the sunrise, laying a blanket on the ground and placing another on their knees. They had the fleeting impression that nothing could ever reach them, not now, not ever. Another day was coming, wiping away the remains of the day before and the bad moments; they could start again everything. They had nothing to fear anymore.

Even if they weren't still totally out of danger, they could finally breathe again.

Her gaze lost in the distance, Quinn had a slight smile at the corner of her lips. Rachel turned her head toward her and noticed the serene, almost carefree look on her features. She grinned; never the blonde had seemed to her as relaxed.

Unconsciously, she came closer and put her forehead against her temple, without stopping watching her. She moistened her lips nervously, took a deep breath, smelling Quinn's scent mingle with the odor of the conifers surrounding them.

"Quinn."

She had whispered her name so quietly that Quinn had barely felt her breath on her ear. Quinn looked at her in her turn, saw the expression in her eyes, and filled the gap between them by putting her lips on hers.

Rachel felt the adrenaline pulse through her veins at her touch, just as light as thunderous. She had waited for this moment for years, forever, and had been patient until Quinn felt capable of loving, of living again.

Until she was certain she wouldn't break. Until she was healed.

Rachel put her hand on Quinn's cheek, stroking her jawbone with her fingers, feeling her thin hair tickling her skin. She moved her lips, put more pressure, more insistence in the kiss. The blonde moaned softly, kissing her even more.

One second later, Rachel found herself lying down under Quinn's body, at the mercy of her lips and her hands.

During long minutes — or perhaps hours, they couldn't have told — they kept on kissing, warmed up by the scorching sun and by the fervor driving their gestures, by the sensation of freedom that had taken them over. Then, Quinn finally pulled away from the small brunette, her lips swollen and red to have shared so many kisses, and she smiled to Rachel. She murmured against her mouth words that filled Rachel's heart with joy and hope.

"We're going to make up for lost time, I promise you."

They had plenty of time ahead of them.

* * *

 _Your bruises and cuts, they're ghosts from the past_  
 _There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide_  
 _The will pain will go away, I slowly realise_  
 _I miss you so deeply, I wanna be where you are._

 _— Your Witness, Seppuku Paradigm._


	7. Chapter 7 : epilogue

_I think I'll go for a ride  
'Til my memory fades _  
_Roll down the windows and glide down 75 to the Everglades._

 _— Nothing But You, Kim Ferron._

* * *

Rachel had spent seventeen years looking after Quinn without respite. Quinn had spent the same amount of time looking for a way to get back what she had lost, unsuccessfully. Yet, she didn't consider these last ten days like a failure.

She may have killed four people, but she didn't fall asleep knowing that her family's murderers were still free and far from justice and jail anymore.

She didn't go to sleep, shaking with fear, in Rachel's bed anymore, scared that the culprits would come back to get her, to punish her for having fled, to beat her to death and look at her suffering without scruples.

She barely thought about it anymore.

They had driven for two days still after leaving Salt Lake City and its stunning view, only stopping to eat or to sleep. They turned the radio on less often; the news were banal and repetitive, and the intentional fire of the Indiana manor was only mentioned once. The investigation was still on, looking for the criminals, but they still had no proof, and the research teams were beginning to wear out.

Quinn knew that they had managed to avoid them definitely when she went past the green sign, where "California" was written in big white letters.

They finally did it. They had crossed half of the United States in less than a week, traveled thousands of kilometers without looking back, without looking behind them, and they had finally reached their destination.

However, Quinn kept on driving, refusing to stop before she could see the ocean. She bypassed the Mojave desert, driving the vehicle under an already scorching sun even though it was only eleven in the morning, and eventually reached the shore after a couple of hours.

She parked the car a few kilometers away from the nearest town, in front of a beach stretching endlessly and a blue stretch even more vast. She opened the window, felt the sea air submerging the vehicle and the light wind tousling her hair. Quinn sighed softly and let herself fall against the back of her seat.

"We're here."

Rachel almost asked "where?" but she didn't when she saw the look of pure serenity bathing Quinn's face. She looked happy, as if she had just finally reached an objective about which she had dreamed for so long. The dark-haired girl smiled, then she also began to observe the horizon before her eyes.

It was terribly different from Ohio — Rachel only knew, before the events of the last month, this small state from the north of the United States, and it made her oddly happy to see such a diametrically opposite landscape to the one of her childhood.

And their journey, in fact, even if it wasn't truly one at first, had led her through hundreds of places that she couldn't have even imagined. She would at least get something positive out of it.

No, it wasn't true — there was something else that was positive, and it had nothing to do with the discovery of thousands of landscapes. Quinn was free, free of her torturers, from the injustice following her since she was seven years old. Perhaps not totally freed from her guilt, but she would succeed, Rachel was sure of it.

Quinn had been able to realize the most important thing to her — avenge her family and fix the injustice from which she had been a victim.

From now on, she could move on better things.

Suddenly, the blonde averted her gaze from this dreamlike picture and laid it on Rachel, offering her a shy but confident smile. Her eyes were shining with love and happiness. Her pupils weren't obstructed by the painful memory that had haunted her for so long anymore.

And Rachel knew that she had already moved on. They had their entire lives before them to make up for lost time.

* * *

 **Here's the end of the story, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did when I wrote it. Thanks to those who left a review, that's what drives me to translate for you.  
**


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